READING TRAILS AND INSCRIPTIONS AROUND AN OLD BUS-HOUSE IN MONARGA, NORTH CYPRUS

Abstract

On top of the natural fortifications of Monarga in Cyprus, there are three houses facing the Mediterranean Sea. Behind them there is a semi-derelict bus, which was brought here in the early 1970’s and converted by its owners into a fully serviceable house. There is also a derelict steel shed, which was also used as a house. These buildings and the bus were all located within the close vicinity of a Maronite family, who abandoned their home during the 1974 Turkish intervention. Today, these houses are owned by three Turkish families. These three houses, which are viewed as pieces of conventional architecture, are still used as houses, but the “bus-house” and the steel shed have been left to decay naturally. The bus-house protected its autonomy after the war, because it has not been badly damaged, and it still whispers the story of its first owners. The objective of this paper is to investigate the architectural reasons behind the autonomy of the bus-house in the face of the war. The bus was first used like a playground for children, and finally, after six phases of transformation, it became a type of unconventional dwelling. The bus-house is a trail, the autonomy of which can be investigated according to; 1. its particular characteristics as a ruin, 2. the process of its construction in the memories of the first owners of the environment, 3. its immediate ethical effect on the new users of the environment. The methods, which were used during this research, were; the observation of the bus-house and its surroundings, interviews with the Maronite family, and the new owners of the environment, the preparation of a scenario about the process of transformation of the bus-house, and the participatory observation of the current physical environment.